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BY A. J. GEORGE, A.M. 



WORDSWORTH'S PRELUDE. With Notes. 
SELECTIONS FROM WORDSWORTH. With Notes. 
WORDSWORTH'S PREFACES AND ESSAYS ON POETRY, 

With Notes. 
SELECT POEIVIS OF ROBERT BURNS. With Notes. 
CARLYLE'S ESSAY ON BURNS. With Notes. 
TENNYSON'S PRINCESS. With Notes. 
COLERIDGE'S CRITICAL ESSAYS. (From Biographia Literaria.) 

With Notes. 
SELECT POEMS OF COLERIDGE. With Notes. 
COLERIDGE'S ANCIENT MARINER. With Notes. 
BURKE'S SPEECHES ON THE AMERICAN WAR, AND LETTER 

TO THE SHERIFFS OF BRISTOL. With Notes. 
BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. With 

Notes. 
SELECT SPEECHES OF DANIEL WEBSTER. With Notes. 
THE BUNKER HILL ORATION. With Notes. 
SYLLABUS OF ENGLISH HISTORY AND LITERATURE. 



In Preparation. 

Wordsworth's Excursion and White Doe of Rylstone. 
The History and Literature of Scotland: 

I. The Highlands. II. Border. 




DANIEL WEBSTER. 



Ibeatb's BngUsb Classfcs 
WEBSTER'S 

FIRST BUNKER HILL ORATION 

AND 

WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 

WITH 

PREFACE, INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES 

BY 

A. J. GEORGE, A. M., Litt. D. 

Department of English Literature 
High School, Newton, Mass. 



BOSTON, U.S.A. 
D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 

1905 



, Li' rnhm- oTsoNiiissl 

iwj Oopjes rtlfece!v»a 

OCT. 16 i905 

I COPT S. 



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Copyright, 1895 and 1905, 
By a. J. GEORGE. 



TO 
E. J. GOODWIN 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, NEW YORK 

SOMETIME MY ASSOCIATE 
STILL MY FRIEND 



Blest Statesman He, whose Mind's unselfish will 
Leaves him at ease among grand thoughts : whose eye 
Sees that, apart from magnanimity, 
Wisdom exists not; nor the humbler skill 
Of Prudence, disentangling good and ill 
With patient care. What tho' assaults run high, 
They daunt not mm who holds his ministry. 
Resolute, at all hazards, to fulfil 
Its duties; prompt to move, but nrm to wait; 
Knowing, things rashly sought are rarely found; 
That, for the functions of an ancient State — 
Strong by her charters, free because imbound, 
Servant of Providence, not slave of Fate — 
Perilous is sweeping change, all chance unsound." 
vi 



PREFACE. 



When we study the history of those nations which have given 
to the world models of art in Kterature, we are surprised often 
at the meagreness of the literature of oratory in these nations. 
Numerous as are the occasions when great audiences have been 
moved to thought and action by the words of a leader, very 
few are the instances where these words have been so treasured 
by time that they hold a place among the great classics ; 
whereas the literature of poetry in the same nations is abun- 
dant in evidence of immortality. This apparent discrimination 
in favor of the poet is evidently due to the fact that the occa- 
sional oratory, effective as it may have been at the time, did 
not approach near enough to great poetry to possess the ele- 
ment which the Germans call unendlichkeit, infinitude, or uni- 
versaHty; it did not rise out of the limitations of time and 
place into the sphere of great truths where all art must live 
and move and have its being. 

It is interesting and profitable to compare the poetry of 
oratory with the oratory of poetry. Such a study reveals the 
kinship of poet and orator, that in the infancy of literary art 
the two are one in virtue of the shaping and transforming 
power of imagination, — " the vision and the faculty divine " — 
which protests against the unreality of a life in which the senses 
are supreme. 



viii PREFACE. 

In that distant past, when our Saxon forefathers — story- 
loving, story-telling people — 

" Went about their gravest deeds 
Like noble boys at play," 

poetry, philosophy, and oratory were born from a common 
parent ; they have now wandered so far from their old home 
that they hardly recognize it ; nor do they treat each other as 
children of one household. The Gleeman stood forth in the 
assembly of the tribe on the forest hill-tops — or in the mead- 
hall hung with ghttering armor, shield, spear, and coat of mail — 
and tuned his harp and voice to the wild passion of victory, or 
to the pathetic wail of defeat ; or with eager joy sang the praise 
of some hero, strong in body and great in soul, and wove a tale 
that inspired his listeners to grasp their armor with a determi- 
nation to do and to be, as he uttered that note of freedom, when 

" Woe, woe to tyrants ! from his lyre 
Broke threateningly in sparkles dire 
Of fierce, vindictive song." 

In these modest, sincere, artless, and impassioned songs we 
have the secret of the poet, the philosopher, and the orator ; 
the secret which baffles analysis and defies definition. These 
ballads — sung by men whose only motive for singing was to 
reveal bravery and nobility, sung of men whose interest in life 
was loyalty and trueheartedness — still remain models of 

"Truth-breathed music, soul-like lays; 
Not of vain-glory born, nor love of praise. 
But welling purely from profound heart-springs, 
That lie deep down amid the life of things. 
And singing on, heedless though mortal ear 
Should never their lone murmur hear." 



PREFACE. IX 

By stimulating curiosity, or a desire to know ; obedience, or 
a desire to do; and admiration, or a desire to become; these 
unknown singers open wide the doors which lead to the king- 
dom of life and art. They seem to anticipate Browning's Abt 
Vogler who sang : 

" Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear ; 

Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and the woe; 
But God has a few of us whom he whispers in the ear; 
The rest may reason, and welcome : 'tis we musicians know." 

When life and art become " sickhed o'er with the pale cast of 
thought " ; when the vigor and spontaneity of youth are lost in 
an over-refined civiHzation, fortunate are we if we Hsten to the 
prophets who cry, 

"Art has truth, take refuge there," 

and seeking these well-springs of health and sweetness, there 
find comfort and peace, 

" For there is shed 

On spirits that have long been dead, 

Spirits dried up and closely furl'd. 

The freshness of the early world." 

Although we know how impartial time is in enforcing the rule 
that nothing but the truly excellent, nothing but that which 
has in it the universal, and is a joy to the maker and the user, 
can be admitted to the sacred temple presided over by the god- 
dess of beauty ; yet we believe that American literature, in the 
sphere of poetry and oratory, has already received the crown of 
the beautiful, the true, and the good. In witness of this, look 
into Westminster Abbey, where Longfellow and Lowell find fit 
society, and into Harvard's Memorial Hall where Webster is 
given a place as one of the seven great orators of the world. 



X PREFACE. 

The order of development of literary art upon American soil 
was first oratory, — of the pulpit and the forum, — and then 
poetry, — of nature and of man. The early days of our 
history were such as tried men's souls. Strenuous activity 
in church and state demanded clear vision and persuasive 
utterance. The cradle of the infant state was made of the 
toughest fibre from hearts of oak. The oratory born out of 
such a condition of affairs is stamped with the image and super- 
scription of America ; it is the most typically national of any of 
our achievements in the sphere of art. Our poetry — the 
growth of a period when the pioneer constructive work had been 
completed ; when the questions of government and religion were 
settled — was more cosmopoHtan, and hence less peculiarly 
American. The sweetest singer, and perhaps the greatest 
artist, of our band of poets is read and loved not less in 
England than in America. 

While the occasional oratory of the Revolution and of the 
Rebellion reached high-water mark, of no American orator, 
except Daniel Webster, can it be said that — before a jury, in 
the Supreme Court of the United States, on great historical 
occasions, and in the Senate of the United States — his every 
utterance was classic in form and national in spirit. 

The reason for this is not in those elements of chance, the 
times, the nature of the subjects, the condition of the national 
mind ; these have always been, but have not always been re- 
vealed to later generations, because the only creative force in 
the world — a great personality — was not present to seize the 
permanent and the true in them, and give it form. 

The only cause in the sphere of Webster's art, the only 
cause in the world of art, is personality; to reach this is to 
reach the centre and source of all things in Nature and human 



PREFACE. xi 

life. It is through great men that God's revelations reach us. 
Carlyle has said, that the history of the world is the biography 
of great men, and that admiration for a great personality is the 
most vivifying influence in the hfe of a man. Emerson voices 
the same sentiment where he tells us to beware when God 
sends a great soul upon the planet, for then all things are in 
danger. 

The unity of literary art has its source in God, and the unity 
in the work of any great artist is in his own personality. To 
come into vital relations with the artist through the medium 
of his works ; to become his friend to whom he may reveal 
the secrets of his mind and heart ; to become quickened by 
his spirit, and receptive to his ideals, as the waters are to the 
sky's influence, — this is to gain the central motive of a great 
life, and is the end of all true literary interpretation. Where 
this is done, order reigns where before all seemed chaotic, and 
one feels a thrill of emotion akin to that which the author had 
in creating the work. 

" If there did not something else go to the making of litera- 
ture," says John Burroughs, " besides mere literary parts, how 
long ago the old bards and Biblical writers would have been 
superseded by the learned and gentlemanly versifiers of later 
times. . . . Only those books are for the making of men into 
which a man has gone in the making." 

Lowell, who was a most stimulating and successful teacher 
of the great Hteratures, was wont to praise Johnson for saying 
that " whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses ; 
whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predomi- 
nate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking 
beings." 

The growth of Webster's mind and art from the first college 



xii PREFACE. 

exercise to those great speeches in the Senate of the United 
States, is the gradual unfolding of that mysterious something 
which defies analysis, but which is everywhere present and to 
which we give the name of genius. 

The Bunker Hill oration represents one stadium in the course 
of this movement ; it is therefore a history and a prophecy ; it 
reveals what has been and gives glimpses of heights that are 
higher. In the national spirit, the quality of imagination, the 
depth of passion, the breadth of sympathy, the steady and 
strong undercurrent of the rehgious feeling, — in these we have 
revealed the essential elements of Webster's mind and art. In 
this continual transpiration of character, one sees the style 
Websterian, and when this has been revealed, it will be 
no hardship to follow the author through the minute details 
in the handling of words, sentences, and paragraphs, and 
the processes of description, narration, exposition, and persua- 
sion, by which the qualities of clearness, force, and beauty are 
attained. 

It has been said that the proper object of education is the 
training of the powers of observation, judgment, expression, 
memory, and the creation of high ideals of life. 

Will the study of literature be as effective in gaining the 
former of these ends as in furnishing means for the latter? 
Literature is indeed a fine art and its end is inspiration, not 
information : its law is enjoyment as a condition for right un- 
derstanding. Every form of art is the embodiment of method, 
and to gain the principles governing that method is as labo- 
rious and painstaking a process — and the same in kind — 
as that required to comprehend the laws of mechanics or 
geology. 

The subject, whether it be a lyric, an epic, or a drama, an 



PREFACE. xiii 

essay, an oration, or a novel, is the territory to be studied. The 
method is observation and induction. The teacher is the guide 
whose duty it is to select the ground to be visited, and to make 
the approach to it in such a way that the pupil may do his own 
seeing, and may thus develop the powers of observation ; that 
he may determine the difference between the tilting of the 
various strata, the constitution of soil, and the rock formation, 
and thus compare 2cs\di judge ; that he may record his observa- 
tions, formulate and state his conclusions, and thus develop 
clear expression ; that he may retain impressions and conclu- 
sions, and thus strengthen memory. Thus we see that the 
manner of gaining facts in the examination of a work of art is 
essentially the same as that in the examination of a section of 
the country for the facts of its formation, etc. Why, then, 
should not the one exercise be as useful as the other as an 
educational process? 

Hence, while maintaining that the end of literary study should 
be access of power through insight into and assimilation of the 
elements of truth and beauty, we insist, none the less, that if 
properly ordered, the study will promote strength and discipline 
of mind. 

The new requirements in English for College Entrance Ex- 
aminations will do much to raise the character of English 
teaching in secondary schools, and will make the editing of 
EngHsh classics something other than the mechanical work it 
has often seemed to be. A masterpiece of literary art must be 
presented in such a manner that its study will lead naturally 
and necessarily to the study of other works of the same author, 
and to the works of other authors in the same literary period. 
Such study will lead to an appreciation not only of a great 
artist but also of the national spirit which developed that art 



xiv PREFACE. 

and which is revealed by it. Webster's First Bunker Hill 
Oration and Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America 
are edited to meet the above requirements. Both of these 
selections are set for the college preparatory work, the exami- 
nation upon which presupposes a thorough study of the subject- 
matter, the form, and the period — literary and political — which 
they represent. 

These speeches are the highest types of oratory in the two 
great Enghsh-speaking nations, and the study of them should 
lead to a genuine appreciation of the noble character and lofty 
ideals of these great men. Burke and Webster are models in 
the forensic literature of our own language as truly as are 
Demosthenes and Cicero in the language of the ancient classics. 
Each has distinct and inimitable characteristics which give force 
and beauty to his work. The study of each should be ordered 
in such a way as to put one in touch with those qualities of 
mind and heart, of intellectual and moral manhood, by which 
each became a leader in political philosophy and a model in 
literary style. One who studies such authors in order to 
formulate a historical or a personal estimate merely, or to 
compare each as to certain externals of rhetorical form, has 
lost the true perspective of literary judgment. " The little con- 
ceited specialist," sajs Phillips Brooks, " with small curiosity, 
and less obedience, and no admiration, is incapable of the 
fullest approach and entrance of truth." 

Reading in the school and in the home is far too often pur- 
sued with a purpose to controvert and prove rather than to 
weigh and consider. Reading which does not result in enlarg- 
ing, stimulating, and refining one's nature is but a busy idleness. 
The schools should do something to correct the desultory and 
dissipating methods of reading, so prevalent in the home. 



PREFACE. XV 

Pupils must be stimulated first of all to enjoy what is beautiful 
in nature and art : for here is 

" A world of ready wealth, 
Their minds and hearts to bless — 
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, 
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.'' 

The wisdom of the classroom is too often " art tongue-tied 
by authority," and hence it is not wisdom at all, but a sham 
and a pretence. Not until pupils rise to the spontaneity which 
betokens a genuine love for the work in hand do they secure 
the richest results. 

I am constrained to protest against the method of annotation 
which prevails to such an extent in our text-books of English 
hterature, — a method which pauperizes both teacher and pupil. 
When the notes furnish facts — biographical, historical, or lin- 
guistic — instead of showing where they may be found; when 
they present criticism — sesthetic, philosophical, or textual — 
instead of directing to the sources of such criticism, they are 
mischievous in the extreme. By such a method the teacher 
is led to believe that success in teaching depends upon ability 
to dilate upon such material, and he begins at once to magnify 
these trifles until they obscure completely the end of reading ; 
sympathy with great truths and great men, love of beautiful 
conception and artistic execution languish and die ; while by 
this same method the pupil is taught to believe that his ability 
to read depends upon his scholarship in getting up notes — a 
mere lip service. 

Although Dr. Johnson's edition of Shakespeare may have 
been worthless as regards scholarship, yet the Preface shows 
vigorous Enghsh as well as colossal good sense. His remarks 



XVI PREFACE. 

on the use of notes are so fresh, so independent, and so sug- 
gestive, that I cannot refrain from quoting them. 

"Notes are often necessary," he says, "but they are neces- 
sary evils. Let him that is yet unacquainted with the powers 
of Shakespeare, and who desires to feel the highest pleasure 
that the drama can give, read every play from the first scene 
to the last, with utter neghgence of all his commentators. 
When his fancy is once on the wing, let it not stoop to cor- 
rection or explanation. When his attention is strongly engaged, 
let it disdain alike to turn aside to the names of Theobald and 
of Pope. Let him read on through brightness and obscurity, 
through integrity and corruption; let him preserve his com- 
prehension of the dialogue and his interest in the fable. And 
when the pleasures of novelty have ceased, let him attempt 
exactness and read the commentators." 

When teachers insist upon notes that stimulate inquiry and 
send the mind on voyages of discovery, we may be assured 
such notes will be furnished ; but so long as they are apathetic, 
and love scholastic ease and padded texts, so long must they 

" Pore and dwindle as they pore. " 

When both teacher and pupil look through the broad windows 
and breathe the atmosphere admitted through the open doors 
of imagination, instead of peering through the chinks and breath- 
ing the stifling air of the workshop, they will run and not be 
weary. 

At the meeting held in Faneuil Hall, Oct. 27, 1852, com- 
memorative of Mr. Webster's life and work, Mr. Edward 
Everett said : " Whoever, in after time, shall write the history 
of the United States for the last forty years will write the hfe of 
Daniel Webster ; and whoever writes the life of Daniel Webster 



PREFACE. xvii 

as it ought to be written, will write the history of the Union 
from the time he took a leading part in its concerns." Mr. 
Choate, at a meeting of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, 
Oct. 25, 1852, said : " Happier than the younger Pliny, hap- 
pier than Cicero, he has found his historian, unsolicited, in his 
lifetime, and his countrymen have him all by heart." 

If this volume shall aid in bringing the young of this genera- 
tion " to have him all by heart," to ascend his imaginative 
heights and sit under the shadow of his profound reflections 
on that which is fundamental in civil and religious liberty, its 
purpose will be accomplished. 

The references in the notes to The First Settlement of New 
England, The Reply to Hayne, The Constitution not a Com- 
pact, and Burke's Speech on American Taxation will be found 
in Select Speeches of Daniel Webster, and Burke^s American 
Orations, published by D. C. Heath & Co., they being the only 
editions of these speeches having numbered lines. In order 
that those who have other editions may readily find the re- 
ferences, I have quoted initial words in each case. 

Events in our political history during the last decade have 
stimulated new interest in the great utterances of those who 
founded and fostered our system of popular government. 
There can be no better guides to the young of this genera- 
tion than Washington, the first great administrator of the 
Constitution, and Webster, its first great expounder and de- 
fender. 

I have therefore added to this volume Washington's Fare- 
well Address. 

A. J. G. 

Brookline, July, 1905. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Mr. Webster approaches as nearly to the beau ideal of a 
republican Senator as any man that I have ever seen in the 
course of my Ufe ; worthy of Rome or Venice rather than of 
our noisy and wrangHng generation. — Hallam. 

Coleridge used to say that he had seldom known or heard of 
any great man who had not much of the woman in him. Even 
so the large intellect of Daniel Webster seemed to be coupled 
with all softer feelings ; and his countenance and bearing, at 
the very first, impressed me with this. A commanding brow, 
thoughtful eyes, and a mouth that seemed to respond to all 
humanities. He deserves his fame, I am sure. — John Kenyon. 

He is a magnificent specimen. You might say to all the 
world, " This is our Yankee Englishman ; such limbs we make 
in Yankee-land ! " As a parliamentary Hercules one would 
incline to back him at first sight against all the extant world. 
The tanned complexion ; that amorphous craglike face ; the 
dull black eyes under the precipice of brows, Hke dull anthra- 
cite furnaces needing only to be blown; the mastiff mouth, 
accurately closed ; I have not traced so much of silent Berser- 
kir rage that I remember of in any other man. — Thomas 
Carlyle. 



XX INTRODUCTION. 

When the historian shall look back upon the first century of 
the American Republic, the two names that will shine with most 
unfading lustre and the serenest glory, high above all others, 
are Washington and Webster. — Professor Felton. 

Consider the remarkable phenomenon of excellence in three 
unkindred, one might have thought incompatible, forms of pub- 
lic speech, — that of the forum, with its double audience of 
bench and jury, of the halls of legislation, and of the most 
thronged and tumultuous assemblies of the people. Consider, 
further, that this multiform eloquence, exactly as his words fell, 
became at once so much accession to permanent literature in 
the strictest sense, — solid, attractive, rich, — and ask how often 
in the history of public life such a thing has been exemplified. 
— RuFus Choate. 

The noblest monument to Daniel Webster is in his works. 
As a repository of political truth and practical wisdom, applied 
to the affairs of government, I know not where we shall find 
their equal. The works of Burke naturally suggest themselves 
to the mind, as the only writings in our language that can sus- 
tain the comparison. -— Edward Everett. 

He writes like a man who is thinking of his subject, and not 
of his style, and thus he wastes no time upon the mere garb of 
his thoughts. His style is Doric, not Corinthian. His sen- 
tences are like shafts hewn from the granite of his own hills, — 
simple, massive, strong. We may apply to him what Quinc- 
tilian says of Cicero, that a relish for his writings is itself a mark 
of good taste. — George S. Hillard. 



INTRODUCTION. xxi 

He taught the people of the United States, in the simphcity 
of common understanding, the principles of the Constitution 
and government of the country, and he wrought for them, in a 
style of matchless strength and beauty, the Hterature of states- 
manship. He made his language the very household words of 
a nation. They are the library of the people. They are the 
school-bopk of the citizen. — John D. Long. 

Take him for all in all, he was not only the greatest orator 
this country has ever known, but in the history of eloquence 
his name will stand with those of Demosthenes and Cicero, 
Chatham and Burke. — Henry Cabot Lodge. 

It may be said that the style of Webster is pre-eminently 
distinguished by manliness. The intellect and moral manliness 
of Webster underlies all his great orations and speeches ; and 
this plain force of manhood, this sturdy grapple with every 
question that comes before his understanding for settlement, 
leads him to reject all the meretricious aids and ornaments of 
mere rhetoric, and is prominent, among the many exceptional 
qualities of his large nature, which have given him a high posi- 
tion among the prose-writers of his country as a consummate 
master of English style. — Edwin P. Whipple. 

His broad, wise statesmanship is to be the ample and re- 
freshing shade, his character the bright and breezy presence, 
in which all the members of this great and illustrious Republic 
may meet and sit down and feast together. — H. N. Hudson. 



xxii INTRODUCTION, 

Washington sought for men fit for offices ; not for offices 
which might suit men. Above personal considerations, above 
local considerations, above party considerations, he felt that 
he could only discharge the sacred trust which the country 
had placed in his hands, by diligent inquiry after real merit, 
and a conscientious preference of virtue and talent. — Daniel 
Webster. 

Washington has one lesson for us ; one lesson for the coun- 
try ; one lesson for each of his countrymen. It is the old 
lesson, older than history, old as creation. That is, that Jus- 
tice, Veracity, Unselfishness, Character, lie at the foundation 
of all national and all individual greatness. Justice and 
Freedom are the parents of Fate. It is to this that the story 
of George Washington is a perpetual witness to his country- 
men. It will be their fault, if they do not make their country 
its perpetual witness to mankind. — George F. Hoar. 

Washington stands alone and unapproachable, like a snow- 
peak rising above its fellows into the clear air of morning, 
with a dignity, constancy, and purity which have made him 
the ideal type of civic virtue to succeeding generations. No 
greater benefit could have come to the republic than to have 
such a type set from the first before the eye and mind of the 
people. — James Bryce. 



WEBSTER'S 

FIRST BUNKER HILL 

ORATION 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 



This uncounted multitude before me and around me proves 
the feeling which the occasion has excited. These thousands 
of human faces, glowing with sympathy and joy, and from 
the impulses of a common gratitude turned reverently to 
S heaven in this spacious temple of the firmament, proclaim 
that the day, the place, and the purpose of our assembling 
have made a deep impression on our hearts.^ 

If, indeed, there be anything in local association fit to 
affect the mind of man, we need not strive to repress the 

lo emotions which agitate us here. We are among the sepul- 
chres of our fathers. We are on ground, distinguished by 
their valor, their constancy, and the shedding of their blood. 
We are here, not to fix an uncertain date in our annals, nor 
to draw into notice an obscure and unknown spot. If our 

15 humble purpose had never been conceived, if we ourselves 
had never been born, the 1 7th of June, 1 775, would have been 
a day on which all subsequent history would have poured its 
light, and the eminence where we stand a point of attraction 
to the eyes of successive generations. But we are Americans. 

20 We live in what may be called the early age of this great 
continent ; and we know that our posterity, through all time, 
are here to enjoy and suffer the allotments of humanity. We 

1 



2 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

see before us a probable train of great events ; we know that 
our own fortunes have been happily cast ; and it is natural, 
therefore, that we should be moved by the contemplation of 
occurrences which have guided our destiny before many of us 
were born, and settled the condition in which we should 5 
pass that portion of our existence which God allows to men 
on earth.^ 

We do not read even of the discovery of this continent, 
without feeling something of a personal interest in the event ; 
without being reminded how much it has affected our own 10 
fortunes and our own existence. It would be still more 
unnatural for us, therefore, than for others, to contemplate 
with unaffected minds that interesting, I may say that most 
touching and pathetic scene, when the great discoverer of 
America stood on the deck of his shattered bark, the shades 15 
of night falling on the sea, yet no man sleeping ; tossed on 
the billows of an unknown ocean, yet the stronger billows of 
alternate hope and despair tossing his own troubled thoughts ; 
extending forward his harassed frame, straining westward his 
anxious and eager eyes, till Heaven at last granted him a 20 
moment of rapture and ecstasy, in blessing his vision with 
the sight of the unknown world.^ 

Nearer to our times, more closely connected with our fates, 
and therefore still more interesting to our feelings and affec- 
tions, is the settlement of our own country by colonists from 25 
England. We cherish every memorial of these worthy 
ancestors ; we celebrate their patience and fortitude ; we 
admire their daring enterprise ; we teach our children to 
venerate their piety; and we are justly proud of being 
descended from men who have set the world an example of 30 
founding civil institutions on the great and united principles 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 3 

of human freedom and human knowledge. To us, their chil- 
dren, the story of their labors and sufferings can never be 
without its interest. We shall not stand unmoved on the 
shore of Plymouth, while the sea continues to wash it ; nor 

5 will our brethren in another early and ancient Colony forget 
the place of its first establishment, till their river shall cease 
to flow by it.^ No vigor of youth, no maturity of manhood, 
will lead the nation to forget the spots where its infancy was 
cradled and defended.^ 

lo But the great event in the history of the continent, which 
we are now met here to commemorate, that ^ro^Qgy-of mod- 
ern times, at once the wonder and the blessing of the world, 
is the American Revolution. In a day of extraordinary 
prosperity and happiness, of high national honor, distinction, 

15 and power, we are brought together, in this place, by our 
love of country, by our admiration of exalted character, by 
our gratitude for signal services and patriotic devotion. 

The Society whose organ I am ^ was formed for the pur- 
pose of rearing some honorable and durable monument to 

20 the memory of the early friends of American Independence. 
They have thought, that for this object no time could be 
more propitious than the present prosperous and peaceful 
period; that no place could claim preference over this 
memorable spot ; and that no day could be more auspicious 

25 to the undertaking than the anniversary of the battle which 
was here fought. The foundation of that monument we 
have now laid. With solemnities suited to the occasion, 
with prayers to Almighty God for his blessing, and in the 
midst of this cloud of witnesses, we have begun the work. 

30 We trust it will be prosecuted, and that, springing from a 



4 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

broad foundation, rising high in massive soUdity and una- 
dorned grandeur, it may remain as long as Heaven permits 
the works of men to last, a fit emblem, both of the events in 
memory of which it is raised, and of the gratitude of those 
who have reared it. 5 

We know, indeed, that the record of illustrious actions is 
most safely deposited in the universal remembrance of man- 
kind. We know, that if we could cause this structure to 
ascend, not only till it reached the skies, but till it pierced 
them, its broad surfaces could still contain but part of that 10 
which, in an age of knowledge, hath already been spread 
over the earth, and which history charges itself with making 
known to all future times. We know that no inscription on 
entablatures less broad than the earth itself can carry in- 
formation of the events we commemorate where it has not 15 
already gone ; and that no structure, which shall not outlive 
the duration of letters and knowledge among men, can pro- 
long the memorial. But our object is, by this edifice, to 
show our own deep sense of the value and importance of 
the achievements of our ancestors ; and, by presenting this 20 
work of gratitude to the eye, to keep alive similar senti- 
ments, and to foster a constant regard for the principles of 
the Revolution. Human beings are composed, not of reason 
only, but of imagination also, and sentiment ; and that is 
neither wasted nor misapplied which is appropriated to the 25 
purpose of giving right direction to sentiments, and opening 
proper springs of feeling in the heart.^ Let it not be sup- 
posed that our object is to perpetuate national hostility, or 
even to cherish a mere military spirit. It is higher, purer, 
nobler. We consecrate our work to the spirit of national 30 
independence, and we wish that the light of peace may rest 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 5 

upon it forever. We rear a memorial of our conviction of 
that unmeasured benefit which has been conferred on our 
own land, and of the happy influences which have been 
produced, by the same events, on the general interests of 

5 mankind. We come, as Americans, to mark a spot which 
must forever be dear to us and our posterity. We wish that 
whosoever, in all coming time, shall turn his eye hither, may 
behold that the place is not undistinguished where the first 
great battle of the Revolution was fought. We wish that 

lo this structure may proclaim the magnitude and importance 
of that event to every class and every age. We wish that 
infancy may learn the purpose of its erection from maternal 
lips, and that weary and withered age may behold it, and 
be solaced by the recollections which it suggests. We wish 

15 that labor may look up here, and be proud, in the midst of 
its toil. We wish that, in those days of disaster, which, as 
they come upon all nations, must be expected to come upon 
us also, desponding patriotism may turn its eyes hitherward, 
and be assured that the foundations of our national power 

20 are still strong. We wish that this column, rising towards 
heaven among the pointed spires of so many temples dedi- 
cated to God, may contribute also to produce, in all minds, 
a pious feeling of dependence and gratitude. We wish, 
finally, that the last object to the sight of him who leaves 

25 his native shore, and the first to gladden his who revisits it, 
may be something which shall remind him of the liberty and 
the glory of his country. Let it rise ! let it rise, till it meet 
the sun in his coming ; let the earliest light of the morning 
gild it, and parting day linger and play on its summit.^ 

30 We live in a most extraordinary age. Events so various 
and so important that they might crowd and distinguish cen- 



6 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

turies are. in our times, compressed within the compass of a 
single life. When has it happened that history has had so 
much to record in the same term of years, as since the 1 7th 
of June, 1775? Our own Revolution, which, under other 
circumstances, might itself have been expected to occasion 5 
a war of half a century, has been achieved; twenty- four 
sovereign and independent States erected; and a general 
government established over them, so safe, so wise, so free, 
so practical, that we might well wonder its establishment 
should have been accomplished so soon, were it not far the 10 
greater wonder that it should have been estabhshed at all. 
Two or three millions of people have been augmented to 
twelve,^ the great forests of the West prostrated beneath the 
arm of successful industry, and the dwellers on the banks of 
the Ohio and the Mississippi become the fellow-citizens and 15 
neighbors of those who cultivate the hills of New England.^ 
We have a commerce, that leaves no sea unexplored ; navies, 
which take no law from superior force ; revenues, adequate 
to all the exigencies of government, almost without taxation ; 
and peace with all nations, founded on equal rights and 20 
mutual respect. 

Europe, within the same period, has been agitated by a 
mighty revolution, which, while it has been felt in the in- 
dividual condition and happiness of almost every man, has 
shaken to the centre her political fabric, and dashed against 25 
one another thrones which had stood tranquil for ages. On 
this, our continent, our own example has been followed, and 
colonies have sprung up to be nations. Unaccustomed 
sounds of liberty and free government have reached us 
from beyond the track of the sun ; and at this moment the 30 
dominion of European power in this continent, from the 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT, 7 

place where we stand to the south pole, is annihilated for- 
ever. 

In the mean time, both in Europe and America, such has 
been the general progress of knowledge, such the improve- 

5 ment in legislation, in commerce, in the arts, in letters, and, 
above all, in liberal ideas and the general spirit of the age, 
that the whole world seems changed.-^ 

Yet, notwithstanding that this is but a faint abstract of the 
things which have happened since the day of the battle of 

lo Bunker Hill, we are but fifty years removed from it ; and we 
now stand here to enjoy all the blessings of our own condi- 
tion, and to look abroad on the brightened prospects of the 
world, while we still have among us some of those who were 
active agents in the scenes of 1775, and who are now here, 

15 from every quarter of New England, to visit once more, 
and under circumstances so affecting, I had almost said so 
overwhelming, this renowned theatre of their courage and 
patriotism. 

Venerable men ! you have come down to us from a 

20 former generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out 

your lives, that you might behold this joyous day. You are 

now where you stood fifty years ago, this very hour, with 

your brothers and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder, in 

the strife for your country. Behold, how altered ! The 

25 same heavens are indeed over your heads ; the same ocean 

rolls at your feet ; but all else, how changed ! You hear 

now no roar of hostile cannon, you see no mixed volumes of 

smoke and flame rising from burning Charlestown. The 

ground strewed with the dead and the dying ; the impetuous 

30 charge; the steady and successful repulse; the loud call 



8 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

to repeated assault; the summoning of all that is manly 
to repeated resistance ; a thousand bosoms freely and fear- 
lessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may 
be in war and death; — all these you have witnessed, 
but you witness them no more. All is peace. The heights 5 
of yonder metropolis, its towers and roofs, which you 
then saw filled with wives and children and countrymen in 
distress and terror, and looking with unutterable emotions 
for the issue of the combat, have presented you to-day with 
the sight of its whole happy population, come out to wel- 10 
come and greet you with a universal jubilee. Yonder proud 
ships, by a felicity of position appropriately lying at the foot 
of this mount, and seeming fondly to cling around it, are 
not means of annoyance to you, but your country's own 
means of distinction and defence.^ All is peace ; and God 15 
has granted you the sight of your country's happiness, ere 
you slumber in the grave. He has allowed you to behold 
and to partake the reward of your patriotic toils ; and he 
has allowed us, your sons and countrymen, to meet you 
here, and in the name of the present generation, in the 20 
name of your country, in the name of liberty, to thank you ! ^ 
But, alas ! you are not all here ! Time and the sword 
have thinned your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks, 
Read, Pomeroy, Bridge ! our eyes seek for you in vain amid 
this broken band. You are gathered to your fathers, and 25 
live only to your country in her grateful remembrance and 
your own bright example. But let us not too much grieve, 
that you have met the common fate of men. You lived at 
least long enough to know that your work had been nobly 
and successfully accomplished. You lived to see your coun- 30 
try's independence estabhshed, and to sheathe your swords 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 9 

from war. On the light of Liberty you saw arise the light 

of Peace, like 

" another morn, 
Risen on mid-noon ";i 

5 and the sky on which you closed your eyes was cloudless. 

But ah ! Him ! the first great martyr in this great cause ! 

Him ! the premature victim of his own self-devoting heart ! 

Him ! the head of our civil councils, and the destined leader 

of our miHtary bands, whom nothing brought hither but the 

lo unquenchable fire of his own spirit ! Him ! cut off by Prov- 
idence in the hour of overwhelming anxiety and thick gloom ; 
falling ere he saw the star of his country rise ; pouring out 
his generous blood like water, before he knew whether it 
would fertilize a land of freedom or of bondage ! — how 

IS shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle the utterance of 
thy name ! Our poor work may perish ; but thine shall en- 
dure ! ^ This monument may moulder away ; the solid ground 
it rests upon may sink down to a level with the sea; but thy 
memory shall not fail ! Wheresoever among men a heart 

20 shall be found that beats to the transports of patriotism and 
hberty, its aspirations shall be to claim kindred with thy 
spirit ! 

But the scene amidst which we stand does not permit us 
to confine our thoughts or our sympathies to those fearless 

25 spirits who hazarded or lost their lives on this consecrated 
spot. We have the happiness to rejoice here in the pres- 
ence of a most worthy representation of the survivors of the 
whole Revolutionary army. 

Veterans ! you are the remnant of many a well-fought 

30 field. You bring with you marks of honor from Trenton 
and Monmouth, from Yorktown, Camden, Bennington, and 



10 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

Saratoga. Veterans of half a century ! when in your 
youthful days you put everything at hazard in your country's 
cause, good as that cause was, and sanguine as youth is, 
still your fondest hopes did not stretch onward to an hour 
like this ! At a period to which you could not reasonably 5 
have expected to arrive, at a moment of national prosperity 
such as you could never have foreseen, you are now met 
here to enjoy the fellowship of old soldiers, and to receive 
the overflowings of a universal gratitude. 

But your agitated countenances and your heaving breasts 10 
inform me that even this is not an unmixed joy. I perceive 
that a tumult of contending feeling rushes upon you. The 
images of the dead, as well as the persons of the living, pre- 
sent themselves before you. The scene overwhelms you 
and I turn from it. May the Father of all mercies smile 15 
upon your declining years, and bless them ! And when you 
shall here have exchanged your embraces, when you shall 
once more have pressed the hands which have been so often 
extended to give succor in adversity, or grasped in the exul- 
tation of victory, then look abroad upon this lovely land 20 
which your young valor defended, and mark the happiness 
with which it is filled ; yea, look abroad upon the whole 
earth, and see what a name you have contributed to give to 
your country, and what a praise you have added to freedom, 
and then rejoice in the sympathy and gratitude which beam 25 
upon your last days from the improved condition of mankind ! 

The occasion does not require of me any particular account 
of the battle of the 1 7th of June, 1 775, nor any detailea nar- 
rative of the events which immediately preceded it. These 
are familiarly known to all. In the progress of the great and 30 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 11 

. interesting controversy, Massachusetts and the town of Bos- 
ton had become early and marked objects of the displeasure 
of the British Parliament. This had been manifested in the 
act for altering the government of the Province, and in that 
5 for shutting up the port of Boston. Nothing sheds more 
honor on our early history, and nothing better shows how 
little the feelings and sentiments of the Colonies were known 
or regarded in England, than the impression which these 
measures everywhere produced in America.^ It had been 

lo anticipated, that, while the Colonies in general would be ter- 
rified by the severity of the punishment inflicted on Massachu- 
setts, the other seaports would be governed by a mere spirit 
of gain ; and that, as Boston was now cut off from all com- 
merce, the unexpected advantage which this blow on her was 

15 calculated to confer on other towns would be greedily en- 
joyed. How miserably such reasoners deceived themselves ! 
How little they knew of the depth, and the strength, and 
the intenseness of that feeling of resistance to illegal acts of 
power, which possessed the whole American people ! Every- 

20 where the unworthy boon was rejected with scorn. The for- 
tunate occasion was seized everywhere, to show to the whole 
world that the Colonies were swayed by no local interest, no 
partial interest, no selfish interest. The temptation to profit 
by the punishment of Boston was strongest to our neighbors 

25 of Salem. Yet Salem was precisely the place where this 
miserable proffer was spurned, in a tone of the most lofty 
self-respect and the most indignant patriotism. " We are 
deeply affected," said its inhabitants, " with the sense of our 
public calamities ; but the miseries that are now rapidly has- 

tp tening on our brethren in the capital of the Province greatly 
excite our commiseration. By shutting up the port of Bos- 



12 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT, 

ton, some imagine that the course of trade might be turned 
hither and to our benefit; but we must be dead to every 
idea of justice, lost to all feeUngs of humanity, could we 
indulge a thought to seize on wealth and raise our fortunes 
on the ruin of our suffering neighbors." These noble senti- s 
ments were not confined to our immediate vicinity. In that 
day of general affection and brotherhood, the blow given to 
Boston smote on every patriotic heart from one end of the 
country to the other. Virginia and the Carolinas, as well 
as Connecticut and New Hampshire, felt and proclaimed lo 
the cause to be their own. The Continental Congress, then 
holding its first session in Philadelphia, expressed its sympa- 
thy for the suffering inhabitants of Boston, and addresses 
were received from all quarters, assuring them that the cause 
was a common one, and should be met by common efforts 15 
and common sacrifices. The Congress of Massachusetts 
responded to these assurances; and in an address to the 
Congress at Philadelphia, bearing the official signature, per- 
haps among the last, of the immortal Warren, notwithstand- 
ing the severity of its suffering and the magnitude of the 20 
dangers which threatened it, it was declared, that this Colony 
" is ready, at all times, to spend and to be spent in the cause 
of America." 

But the hour drew nigh which was to put professions to the 
proof, and to determine whether the authors of these mutual 25 
pledges were ready to seal them in blood. The tidings of 
Lexington and Concord had no sooner spread, than it was 
universally felt that the time was at last come for action. A 
spirit pervaded all ranks, not transient, not boisterous, but 
deep, solemn, determined, 30 

" totamque infusa per artus 
Mens ?igitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet." ^ 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 13 

War, on their own soil and at their own doors, was, indeed, a 
strange work to the yeomanry of New England ; but their 
consciences were convinced of its necessity, their country 
called them to it, and they did not withhold themselves from 
5 the perilous trial. The ordinary occupations of life were 
abandoned ; the plough was staid in the unfinished furrow ; 
wives gave up their husbands, and mothers gave up their sons, 
to the battles of a civil war. Death might come, in honor, 
on the field ; it might come, in disgrace, on the scaffold. 

lo For either and for both they were prepared. The sentiment 
of Quincy was full in their hearts. " Blandishments," said 
that distinguished son of genius and patriotism, "will not 
fascinate us, nor will threats of a halter intimidate ; for, under 
God, we are determined that, wheresoever, whensoever, or 

15 howsoever we shall be called to make our exit, we will die 
free men." 

The 17th of June saw the four New England Colonies 
standing here, side by side, to triumph or to fall together ; 
and there was with them from that moment to the end of 

20 the war, what I hope will remain with them forever : one 
cause, one country, one heart. 

The battle of Bunker Hill was attended with the most 
important effects beyond its immediate results as a military 
engagement. It created at once a state of open, public 

25 war. There could now be no longer a question of proceed- 
ing against individuals, as guilty of treason or rebellion. 
That fearful crisis was past. The appeal lay to the sword, 
and the only question was, whether the spirit and the 
resources of the people would hold out, till the object should 

30 be accomplished. Nor were its general consequences con- 
fined to our own country. The previous proceedings of the 



14 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

Colonies, their appeals, resolutions, and addresses, had made 
their cause known to Europe. Without boasting, we may 
say, that in no age or country has the public cause been 
maintained with more force of argument, more power of 
illustration, or more of that persuasion which excited feeling s 
and elevated principle can alone bestow, than the Revolu- 
tionary state papers exhibit. These papers will forever 
deserve to be studied, not only for the spirit which they 
breathe, but for the ability with which they were written,^ 

To this able vindication of their cause, the Colonies had lo 
now added a practical and severe proof of their own true 
devotion to it, and given evidence also of the power which 
they could bring to its support. All now saw, that if 
America fell, she would not fall without a struggle. Men 
felt sympathy and regard, as well as surprise, when they 15 
beheld these infant states, remote, unknown, unaided, en- 
counter the power of England, and, in the first considerable 
battle, leave more of their enemies dead on the field, in pro- 
portion to the number of combatants, than had been recently 
known to fall in the wars of Europe. 20 

Information of these events, circulating throughout the 
world, at length reached the ears of one who now hears me.^ 
He has not forgotten the emotion which the fame of Bunker 
Hill, and the name of Warren, excited in his youthful 
breast. 25 

Sir, we are assembled to commemorate the establish- 
ment of great pubhc principles of liberty, and to do honor 
to the distinguished dead. The occasion is too severe for 
eulogy of the living. But, Sir, your interesting relation to 
this country, the peculiar circumstances which surround you 30 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 15 

and surround us, call on me to express the happiness which 
we derive from your presence and aid in this solemn 
commemoration. 

Fortunate, fortunate man ! with what measure of devotion 

5 will you not thank God for the circumstances of your extraor- 
dinary life ! You are connected with both hemispheres and 
with two generations. Heaven saw fit to ordain, that the 
electric spark of liberty should be conducted, through you, 
from the New World to the Old ; and we, who are now here 

lo to perform this duty of patriotism, have all of us long ago 
received it in charge from our fathers to cherish your name 
and your virtues. You will account it an instance of your 
good fortune, Sir, that you crossed the seas to visit us at a 
time which enables you to be present at this solemnity. 

15 You now behold the field, the renown of which reached 
you in the heart of France, and caused a thrill in your ardent 
bosom. You see the lines of the little redoubt thrown up 
by the incredible diligence of Prescott; defended, to the 
last extremity, by his lion-hearted valor ; and within which 

20 the corner-stone of our monument has now taken its position. 
You see where Warren fell, and where Parker, Gardner, 
McCleary, Moore, and other early patriots, fell with him. 
Those who survived that day, and whose lives have been 
prolonged to the present hour, are now around you. Some 

25 of them you have known in the trying scenes of the war. 
Behold ! they now stretch forth their feeble arms to embrace 
you. Behold ! they raise their trembling voices to invoke 
the blessing of God on you and yours forever ! 

Sir, you have assisted us in laying the foundation of this 

30 structure. You have heard us rehearse, with our feeble 
commendation, the names of departed patriots. Monu- 



16 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

merits and eulogy belong to the dead. We give them this 
day to Warren and his associates. On other occasions they 
have been given to your more immediate companions in 
arms, to Washington, to Greene, to Gates, to Sullivan, and 
to Lincoln. We have become reluctant to grant these, our 5 
highest and last honors, further. We would gladly hold 
them yet back from the little remnant of that immortal 
band. Serus in coslum redeas. Illustrious as are your merits, 
yet far, O very far distant be the day, when any inscription 
shall bear your name, or any tongue pronounce its eulogy ! 10 

The leading reflection to which this occasion seems to 
invite us, respects the great changes which have happened 
in the fifty years since the battle of Bunker Hill was fought. 
And it peculiarly marks the character of the present age, 
that, in looking at these changes, and in estimating their 15 
effect on our condition, we are obliged to consider, not what 
has been done in our own country only, but in others also. 
In these interesting times, while nations are making separate 
and individual advances in improvement, they make, too, a 
common progress ; like vessels on a common tide, propelled 20 
by the gales at different ^rates, according to their several 
structure and management, but all moved forward by one 
mighty current, strong enough to bear onward whatever does 
not sink beneath it. 

A chief distinction of the present day is a community of 25 
opinions and knowledge amongst men in different nations, 
existing in a degree heretofore unknown. Knowledge has, 
in our time, triumphed, and is triumphing, over distance, 
over difference of l^-nguages, over diversity of habits, over 
prejudice, and over bigotry. The civiUzed and Christian 30 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 17 

world is fast learning the great lesson, that difference of 
nation does not imply necessary hostihty, and that all con- 
tact need not be war. The whole world is becoming a 
common field for intellect to act in. Energy of mind, 

5 genius, power, wheresoever it exists, may speak out in any 
tongue, and the world will hear it. A great cord of senti- 
ment and feeling runs through two continents, and vibrates 
over both. Every breeze wafts intelligence from country to 
country; every wave rolls it; all give it forth, and all in 

lo turn receive it. There is a vast commerce of ideas ; there 
are marts and exchanges for intellectual discoveries, and a 
wonderful fellowship of those individual intelligences which 
make up the mind and opinion of the age. Mind is the 
great lever of all things ; human thought is the process by 

IS which human ends are ultimately answered ; and the diffu- 
sion of knowledge, so astonishing in the last half- century, 
has rendered innumerable minds, variously gifted by nature, 
competent to be competitors or fellow-workers on the theatre 
of intellectual operation. 

20 From these causes important improvements have taken 
place in the personal condition of individuals. Generally 
speaking, mankind are not only better fed and better 
clothed, but they are able also to enjoy more leisure ; they 
possess more refinement and more self-respect. A superior 

25 tone of education, manners, and habits prevails. This re- 
mark, most true in its application to our own country, is 
also partly true when applied elsewhere. ^ It is proved by 
the vastly augmented consumption of those articles of manu- 
facture and of commerce which contribute to the comforts 

30 and the decencies of life ; an augmentation which has far 
outrun the progress of population. And while the unexam- 



18 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

pled and almost incredible use of machinery would seem to 
supply the place of labor, labor still finds its occupation and 
its reward ; so wisely has Providence adjusted men's wants 
and desires to their condition and their capacity. 

Any adequate survey, however, of the progress made dur- 5 
ing the last half-century in the pohte and the mechanic arts, 
in machinery and manufactures, in commerce and agricul- 
ture, in letters and in science, would require volumes. I 
must abstain wholly from these subjects, and turn for a 
moment to the contemplation of what has been done on the 10 
great question of politics and government. This is the 
master topic of the age ; and during the whole fifty years it 
has intensely occupied the thoughts of men. The nature of 
civil government, its ends and uses, have been canvassed 
and investigated ; ancient opinions attacked and defended ; 15 
new ideas recommended and resisted, by whatever power 
the mind of man could bring to the controversy. From the 
closet and the public halls the debate has been transferred 
to the field ; and the world has been shaken by wars of un- 
exampled magnitude, and the greatest variety of fortune. A 20 
day of peace has at length succeeded ; and now that the 
strife has subsided, and the smoke cleared away, we may 
begin to see what has actually been done, permanently 
changing the state and condition of human society. And, 
without dwelling on particular circumstances, it is most ap- 25 
parent, that, from the before-mentioned causes of aug- 
mented knowledge and improved individual condition, a 
real, substantial, and important change has taken place, and 
is taking place, highly favorable, on the whole, to human 
liberty and human happiness. 30 

The great wheel of political revolution began to move in 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 19 

America. Here its rotation was guarded, regular, and safe. 
Transferred to the other continent, from unfortunate but 
natural causes, it received an irregular and violent impulse ; 
it whirled along with a fearful celerity ; till at length, like 

5 the chariot- wheels in the races of antiquity, it took fire 
from the rapidity of its own motion, and blazed onward, 
spreading conflagration and terror around. 

We learn from the result of this experiment, how fortu- 
nate was our own condition, and how admirably the charac- 

lo ter of our people was calculated for setting the great exam- 
ple of popular governments.-^ The possession of power did 
not turn the heads of the American people, for they had 
long been in the habit of exercising a great degree of self- 
control. Although the paramount authority of the parent 

T5 state existed over them, yet a large field of legislation had 
always been open to our Colonial assemblies. They were 
accustomed to representative bodies and the forms of free 
government ; they understood the doctrine of the division 
of power among different branches, and the necessity of 

20 checks on each. The character of our countrymen, more- 
over, was sober, moral, and religious ; and there was little in 
the change to shock their feelings of justice and humanity, or 
even to disturb an honest prejudice. We had no domestic 
throne to overturn, no privileged orders to cast down, no 

25 violent changes of property to encounter. In the American 
Revolution, no man sought or wished for more than to de- 
fend and enjoy his own. None hoped for plunder or for 
spoil. Rapacity was unknown to it ; the axe was not among 
the instruments of its accompHshment ; and we all know 

30 that it could not have lived a single day under any well- 
founded imputation of possessing a tendency adverse to the 
Christian religion.^ 



20 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

It need not surprise us, that, under circumstances less 
auspicious, political revolutions elsewhere, even when well 
intended, have terminated differently. It is, indeed, a great 
achievement, it is the master-work of the world, to establish 
governments entirely popular on lasting foundations ; nor is 5 
it easy, indeed, to introduce the popular principle at all into 
governments to which it has been altogether a stranger. It 
cannot be doubted, however, that Europe has come out of 
the contest, in which she has been so long engaged, with 
greatly superior knowledge, and, in many respects, in a 10 
highly improved condition. Whatever benefit has been ac- 
quired is likely to be retained, for it consists mainly in the 
acquisition of more enlightened ideas. And although king- 
doms and provinces may be wrested from the hands that 
hold them, in the same manner they were obtained ; although 15 
ordinary and vulgar power may, in human affairs, be lost as it 
has been won ; yet it is the glorious prerogative of the em- 
pire of knowledge, that what it gains it never loses. On the 
contrary, it increases by the multiple of its own power ; all 
its ends become means ; all its attainments, helps to new 20 
conquests. Its whole abundant harvest is but so much seed 
wheat, and nothing has limited, and nothing can limit, the 
amount of ultimate product. 

Under the influence of this rapidly increasing knowledge, 
the people have begun, in forms of government, to think 25 
and to reason, on affairs of state. Regarding government 
as an institution for the public good, they demand a knowl- 
edge of its operations, and a participation in its exercise. A 
call for the representative system, wherever it is not enjoyed, 
and where there is already intelligence enough to estimate 30 
its value, is perseveringly made. Where men may speak 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 21 

out, they demand it ; where the bayonet is at their throats, 
they pray for it. 

When Louis the Fourteenth said : " I am the state," he 
expressed the essence of the doctrine of unHmited power. 
5 By the rules of that system, the people are disconnected 
from the state ; they are its subjects ; it is their lord. These 
ideas, founded ii?i the love of power, and long supported by 
the excess and the abuse of it, are yielding, in our age, to 
other opinions ; and the civilized world seems at last to be 

lo proceeding to the conviction of that fundamental and mani- 
fest truth, that the powers of government are but a trust, and 
that they cannot be lawfully exercised but for the good of 
the community. As knowledge is more and more extended, 
this conviction becomes more and more general. Knowl- 

15 edge, in truth, is the great sun in the firmament. Life and 
power are scattered with all its beams. The prayer of the 
Grecian champion, when enveloped in unnatural clouds and 
darkness, is the appropriate political supplication for the 
people of every country not yet blessed with free institu- 

20 tions : — 

" Dispel this cloud, the light of heaven restore, 
Give me to see, — and Ajax asks no more." ^ 

We may hope that the glowing influence of enlightened 
sentiment will promote the permanent peace of the world. 

25 Wars to maintain family alliances, to uphold or to cast down 
dynasties, and to regulate successions to thrones, which have 
occupied so much room in the history of modern times, if 
not less likely to happen at all, will be less likely to become 
general and involve many nations, as the great principle 

30 shall be more and more established, that the interest of the 



22 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

world is peace, and its first great statute, that every nation 
possesses the power of establishing a government for itself. 
But public opinion has attained also an influence over gov- 
ernments which do not admit the popular principle into 
their organization. A necessary respect for the judgment 5 
of the world operates, in some measure, as a control over 
the most unlimited forms of authority. It is owing, perhaps, 
to this truth, that the interesting struggle of the Greeks has 
been suffered to go on so long, without a direct interference, 
either to wrest that country from its present masters, or to 10 
execute the system of pacification by force, and, with united 
strength, lay the neck of Christian and civilized Greek at the 
foot of the barbarian Turk.-^ Let us thank God that we live 
in an age when something has influence besides the bayonet, 
and when the sternest authority does not venture to en- 15 
counter the scorching power of public reproach. Any at- 
tempt of the kind I have mentioned should be met by one 
universal burst of indignation ; the air of the civilized world 
ought to be made too warm to be comfortably breathed by 
any one who would hazard it. 20 

It is, indeed, a touching reflection, that, while, in the ful- 
ness of our country's happiness, we rear this monument to 
her honor, we look for instruction in our undertaking to a 
country which is now in fearful contest, not for works of art 
or memorials of glory, but for her own existence. Let her 25 
be assured that she is not forgotten in the world ; that her 
efforts are applauded, and that constant prayers ascend for 
her success. And let us cherish a confident hope for her 
final triumph. If the true spark of religious and civil liberty 
be kindled, it will burn. Human agency cannot extinguish 30 
it. Like the earth's central fire, it may be smothered for a 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 23 

time ; the ocean may overwhelm it ; mountains may press it 
down ; but its inherent and unconquerable force will heave 
both the ocean and the land, and at some time or other, in 
some place or other, the volcano will break out and flame 
5 up to heaven.- 

Among the great events of the half-century, we must 
reckon, certainly, the revolution of South America ; and we 
are not likely to overrate the importance of that revolution, 
either to the people of the country itself or to the rest of the 

xo world.'' The late Spanish colonies, now independent states, 
under circumstances less favorable, doubtless, than attended 
our own revolution, have yet successfully commenced their 
national existence. They have accomplished the great 
object of estabhshing their independence ; they are known 

IS and acknowledged in the world ; and although in regard to 
their systems of government, their sentiments on rehgious 
toleration, and their provisions for public instruction, they 
may have yet much to learn, it must be admitted that they 
have risen to the condition of settled and established states 

20 more rapidly than could have been reasonably anticipated. 
They already furnish an exhilarating example of the differ- 
ence between free governments and despotic misrule. Their 
commerce, at this moment, creates a new activity in all the 
great marts of the world. They show themselves able, by 

25 an exchange of commodities, to bear a useful part in the 
intercourse of nations. 

A new spirit of enterprise and industry begins to prevail ; 
all the great interests of society receive a salutary impulse ; 
and the progress of information not only testifies to an im- 

30 proved condition, but itself constitutes the highest and most 
essential improvement. 



24 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

When the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought, the existence 
of South America was scarcely felt in the civiHzed world. 
The thirteen Httle Colonies of North America habitually 
called themselves the " Continent." Borne down by colonial 
subjugation, monopoly, and bigotry, these vast regions of s 
the South were hardly visible above the horizon. But in 
our day there has been, as it were, a new creation. The 
southern hemisphere emerges from the sea. Its lofty moun- 
tains begin to lift themselves into the light of heaven ; its 
broad and fertile plains stretch out, in beauty, to the eye of lo 
civilized man, and at the mighty bidding of the voice of 
political liberty the waters of darkness retire. 

And now, let us indulge an honest exultation in the con- 
viction of the benefit which the example of our country has 
produced, and is likely to produce, on human freedom and 15 
human happiness. Let us endeavor to comprehend in all 
its magnitude, and to feel in all its importance, the part 
assigned to us in the great drama of human affairs. We 
are placed at the head -of the system of representative and 
popular governments. Thus far our example shows that 20 
such governments are compatible, not only with respect- 
ability and power, but with repose, with peace, with security 
of personal rights, with good laws, and a just administra- 
tion.^ 

We are not propagandists. Wherever other systems are 25 
preferred, either as being thought better in themselves, or 
as better suited to existing condition, we leave the prefer- 
ence to be enjoyed. Our history hitherto proves, however, 
that the popular form is practicable, and that with wisdom 
and knowledge men may govern themselves ; and the duty 30 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT, 25 

incumbent on us is, to preserve the consistency of this 
cheering example, and take care that nothing may weaken 
its authority with the world. If, in our case, the represen- 
tative system ultimately fail, popular governments must be 
5 pronounced impossible. No combination of circumstances 
more favorable to the experiment can ever be expected to 
occur. The last hopes of mankind, therefore, rest with us ; 
and if it should be proclaimed, that our example had become 
an argument against the experiment, the knell of popular 

lo liberty would be sounded throughout the earth. 

These are excitements to duty ; but they are not sugges- 
tions of doubt. Our history and our condition, all that is 
gone before us, and all that surrounds us, authorize the be- 
lief, that popular governments, though subject to occasional 

15 variations, in form perhaps not always for the better, may 
yet, in their general character, be as durable and permanent 
as other systems. We know, indeed, that in our country any 
other is impossible. The principle of free governments ad- 
heres to the American soil. It is bedded in it, immovable 

20 as its mountains. 

And let the sacred obligations which have devolved on 
this generation, and on us, sink deep into our hearts. Those 
who established our liberty and our government are daily 
dropping from among us. The great trust now descends to 

25 new hands. Let us apply ourselves to that which is pre- 
sented to us, as our appropriate object. We can win no 
laurels in a war for independence. Earlier and worthier 
hands have gathered them all. Nor are there places for us 
by the side of Solon, and Alfred, and other founders of 

30 states. Our fathers have filled them. But there remains to 
us a great duty of defence and preservation ; and there is 



26 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

opened to us, also, a noble pursuit, to which the spirit of the 
times strongly invites us. Our proper business is improve- 
ment. Let our age be the age of improvement. In a day 
of peace, let us advance the arts of peace and the works of 
peace. Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth s 
its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great 
interests, and see whether we also, in our day and genera- 
tion, may not perform something worthy to be remembered. 
Let us cultivate a true spirit of union and harmony. In 
pursuing the great objects which our condition points out to lo 
us, let us act under a settled conviction, and an habitual 
feeling, that these twenty-four States are one country. Let 
our conceptions be enlarged to the circle of our duties. 
Let us extend our ideas over the whole of the vast field in 
which we are called to act. Let our object be, our country, 15" 

OUR WHOLE COUNTRY, AND NOTHING BUT OUR COUNTRY. And, 

by the blessing of God, may that country itself become a 
vast and splendid monument, not of oppression and terror, 
but of Wisdom, of Peace, and of Liberty, upon which the 
world may gaze with admiration forever ! ^ 20 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



First Period : Law and Politics in New Hampshireo 

1782 Born at Salisbury, New Hampshire, January 18. 

Early Education. 
1797 Enters Dartmouth College. 
1805 Admitted to the Bar, 1805. 

Practises in Boscawen. 
1807 Removes to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. 
1813 Elected to Congress from Portsmouth. 
1 814-15 The Hartford Convention. 



Second Period : Leader at the Bar and in the Forum. 

1 81 6 Removes to Boston, Massachusetts. 

181 7 "The Defence of the Kennistons." 

1 8 1 8 "The Dartmouth College Case. " 
1820 Massachusetts Convention. 

" First Settlement of New England." 
1822 Elected to Congress from Boston. 
1825 " The Bunker Hill Monument." 



Third Period : Expounder and Defender of the Constitution. 

1827 Elected to the Senate from Massachusetts. 
1830 "The Reply to Hayne." 

1^33 " The Constitution not a Compact between Sovereign States." 
1833-34 Removal of the Deposits from the United States Bank. 
Rise of the Whig Partyo 

27 



28 BIOGRAPHICAL. 

1835 Nominated to the Presidency by the Whigs of Massachusetts,, 

1837 Reception in New York. 

1839 Visits England. 

1840 Presidential Canvass. 
1840-43 Secretary of State. 

Ashburton Treaty. 

Resigns the Department of State. 

1844 Re-elected to the Senate from Massachusetts. 

1845 " Eulogy on Justice Story." 
Annexation of Texas. 

1846 Banquet in Philadelphia. 
1850 Seventh of March Speech. 

Secretary of State under President Fillmore. 
1852 Public Reception in Boston. 
Last Illness and Death. 



ANALYSIS OF PROSE STYLE. 

Elements. 

Vocabulary ....*... Peculiarities. 

Sentence Kinds. 

Paragraph ....... Structure. 

Imagery Clearness, Emphasis, Beauty. 



Qualities. 

Intellectual . 
Impassioned 
Artistic . . 



Clearness 
Force . 
Beauty 



Simplicity. 

Precision. 

Balance. 

Sublimity. 

Pathos. 

Irony. 

Euphony. 

Rhythm. 

Harmony. 



Processes. 



Description . . Circumstantial. Dynamic. Suggestive. 

Narration . . Historical. Biographical. Dramatic. Creative 

Exposition . . Intensive. Extensive. Inductive. Deductive. 

Persuasion . . To Thought. To Feeling. To Will. 



Divisions. 



T/ie Scientific . " Ministering to one's instinct for knowledge." 
T/ze Poetic . . " Ministering to one's instinct for conduct and 
beauty." 



Essentials. 



" Truth and seriousness of subject." 
" Beauty and felicity of form." 



The characteristic Note of the writer. 
29 



NOTES. 

THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

June, 1825. 

\ 

The following reminiscence of Mr. George Ticknor is of special interest 
as bearing upon the events which led to the election of Mr. Webster as 
the orator at the laying the corner-stone of Bunker Hill Monument. 

" Mr. Webster was president of the Bunker Hill Association and, as 
such, presided at the meeting of the trustees when he was appointed. On 
the evening when he was chosen, being present as one of the trustees, he 
took me aside, and asked me if I supposed all the trustees would prefer to 
have him deliver the address. I told him that I thought there was no 
difference of opinion on the point. I told him that I thought he would 
fulfil public expectation better than any one else; and that I thought his 
place rather called on him to perform the duty. 

" He often talked with me of the work afterward, and seemed quite 
anxious about it, especially after it was decided that General Lafayette 
could be present. A few days before he delivered it, he read it over to 
me. The magnificent opening gave him much concern; so did the 
address to Lafayette; but about that to the Revolutionary soldiers and 
the survivors of the battle, he said that he felt as if he knew how to talk to 
such men, for that his father, and many of his father's friends whom he 
had known, had been among them. He said he had known General 
Stark, and that the last time he saw him was in a tavern in Concord, not 
long before he died, when he said to him: 'Daniel, your face is pretty 
black, but it isn't so black as your father's was with gunpowder at the 
Bennington fight.' " 

As early as 1776, the Massachusetts Lodge of Masons, over which Gen- 
eral Warren had presided, asked the Government of Massachusetts for 

30 



NOTES. 31 

permission to take up his remains, which were buried on the hill the day 
after the battle, and bury them with the usual solemnities. The request 
was granted on condition that the government of the colony should be 
permitted to erect a monument to his memory. 

The ceremonies of burial were performed, but no steps were taken to 
build the monument. General Warren was, at the time of his death, 
Grand Master of the Masonic Lodges of America, and as nothing had been 
done toward erecting a memorial. King Solomon's Lodge of Charlestown 
voted to erect a monument. The land was purchased, and a monument 
dedicated by the Lodge Dec. 2, 1794. It was a wooden pillar of Tuscan 
order, eighteen feet high, raised on a pedestal ten feet in height. The 
pillar was surmounted by a gilt urn. An appropriate inscription was 
placed on the south side of the pedestal. 

The half-century from the date of the battle was at hand, and, despite 
a resolution of Congress and the efforts of a committee of the Legislature 
of Massachusetts, no suitable monument had been erected by the people. 
It was then that, at the suggestion of William Tudor, the matter was taken 
up in earnest and an association was formed known as the Bunker Hill 
Monument Association, Ground was broken for the monument June 7, 
1825. On the morning of the 17th of June, 1825, the ceremonies of 
laying the corner-stone of the monument took place. It was a typical 
June day, and thousands flocked to see the pageant and to hear the great- 
est orator in the land. 

The procession started from the State House at ten o'clock. The mili- 
tary led the van. About two hundred veterans of the Revolution rode in 
carriages, and among them were forty survivors of the battle. Some wore 
their old uniform, others various decorations of their service, and some 
bore the scars of honorable wounds. Following the patriots came the 
Monument Association, and then the Masonic fraternity to the number of 
thousands. Then came the noble Frenchman, Lafayette, the admiration 
of all eyes. Following him were numerous societies with banners and 
music. The head of the procession touched Charlestown Bridge before 
the rear had left the State House, and the march was a continual ovation. 
Arriving at Breed's Hill, the Grand Master of the Masons, Lafayette, and 
the president of the Monument Association laid the corner-stone, and then 
moved to the spacious amphitheatre on the northern side of the hill, where 
the address was delivered by Mr. Webster. 



32 NOTES. 

P. I, 1. 7. I. Compare this introductory paragraph with that of the First 
Settlement of New England and that of the Reply to Hayne. How many- 
years elapsed between these successive speeches ? 

P. 2, 1. 7. I. Compare this paragraph with that in First Settlement of 
New England, beginning with line 24, page 63. "There is a local 
feeling," etc. 

1. 22. 2. Compare this paragraph with lines 2-28, page 64, — First 
Settlement of New England. " The imagination," etc. 

P. 3, 1. 7. I. An account of the voyage of the emigrants to the Mary- 
land Colony is given in the report of Father "White, written soon after 
landing at St. Mary's. The original is preserved by the Jesuits at Rome. 
Cf. Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. I., Ch. X. 

1. 9. 2. Compare this paragraph with that in First Settlement of New 
England, page 63, lines 5-23. " Standing in this relation," etc. 

1. 18. 3. Mr. Webster was at this time president of the Monument 
Association. 

P. 4, 1. 27. I. Cf. page 62, line 1^ et seq., in First Settlement of New 
England. " Poetry is found to have," etc. 

P. 5, 1. 29. I. Compare this paragraph from line 6, page 5, with the last 
paragraph of First Settlement of New England. 

P. 6, 1. 13. I. Even the poetical mind of Webster would not have 
been equal to the conception that within the century the number would 
reach sixty millions. 

1. 16. 2. "The first railroad on the continent was constructed for the 
purpose of accelerating this monument." — Everett. 

P. 7, 1. 7. I. Look up the detail in regard to this topic which Web- 
ster gives in First Settlement of New England, page 97-112. "It would 
far exceed," etc. 

P. 8, 1. 15. I. The allusion is to the ships about the Charlestown Navy 
Yard, which is at the base of Breed's Hill. 

1. 21. 2. This magnificent address to the "Venerable Men" was com- 
posed while Mr. Webster was fishing in Marshpee brook. 

P. 9, 1. 4. I. Cf. Milton's Paradise Lost, V. line 310-31 1. 

1. 17. 2. Cf. Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. IV., page 133. 
A prelude to Warren's patriotism at Bunker Hill is his oration at the 
Old South Meeting House, commemorating the Boston Massacre. In the 
presence of British soldiers he said : " Our streets are again filled with 



NOTES. 33 

armed men, our harbor is crowded with ships of war, but these cannot 
intimidate us : my fellow- citizens, you will maintain your rights, or perish 
in the generous struggle." 

P. II, 1. 9. I. Cf. Burke's speech on American Taxation. 

P. 12, 1. 32. I. Virgil's ^neid, VI., 726. Compare Burke's use of 
the same in his speech on American Taxation, page 13, line 13. 

P. 14, 1. 9. I. Cf. Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. IV., 
Ch. XIV. 

1. 22. 2. General Lafayette had arranged his progress through the other 
States so that he might be present on the 17th. 

P. 19, 1. 32. I. Compare this paragraph with that in First Settlement 
of New England, page 90, line 24. " With the Revolution," etc. 

P. 21, 1. 22. I. Homer's Iliad^ Book XVII. 

P. 22, 13. I. In Mr. Webster's speech on the Greek Revolution, made 
on 19th January, 1824, he said : " Christianity and civihzation have labored 
together; it seems, indeed, to be a law of our common condition, that they 
can live and flourish only together." 

Benjamin Kidd in his great work, Social Evolution, expresses this same 
idea, when he says : " The Evolution which is slowly proceeding in human 
society is not primarily intellectual, but religious in character." Ch. IX., 
page 245. 

P. 23, 1. 5. I. Compare this paragraph, from page 22, line 29, with that 
on page 118, line 4, in First Settlement of New England. "Finally, let 
us," etc. 

1. 10. 2. In the Speech on the Greek Revolution, Mr. Webster said: 
" There is an important topic in the message to which I have yet hardly 
alluded. I mean the rumored combination of the European continental 
sovereigns against the newly established free States of South America. 
Whatever position this government may take on that subject, I trust it will 
be one which can be defended on known and acknowledged grounds of 
right. The near approach or the remote distance of danger may affect 
policy but cannot change principle." 

P. 24, 1. 24. I. Compare this paragraph with that in First Settlement 
cf New England^ page 118, lines 14-29. "The hours of this day," etc. 

P. 26, 1. 20. I . Compare this paragraph with that in Reply to Hayne, 
page 233, line 5-page 234, line 9, " I have not allowed myself," etc. ; Con- 
stitution not a Compact, page 251, lines 15-26. "Sir, I love liberty," etc. 



34 NOTES. 

Great as the Plymouth Oration was acknowledged to be by all, the 
Bunker Hill Address was a distinct advance upon it, both in the scope of 
the ideas and in the skill with which they are wrought into an organic 
whole. It is more compact, more picturesque, more vigorous, more fin- 
ished. In this field of oratory, Mr. Webster probably has never had any 
equal in the English-speaking world. 

Mr. Everett said of the Address : " From such an orator as Mr. Web- 
ster, on such a platform, on such a theme, in the flower of his age, and the 
maturity of his faculties, discoursing upon an occasion of transcendent 
interest, and kindling with the enthusiasm of the day and the spot, it 
might well be regarded as an intellectual treat of the highest order. 
Happy the eyes that saw that most glorious gathering ! Happy the ears 
that heard that heart-stirring strain ! " 

Lafeyette wrote to Webster on the 28th of December, 1825, from La 
Grange, saying : ' ' Your Bunker Hill has been translated into French, and 
other languages, to the very great profit of European readers." 

Mr. Hillard, in his Eulogy on Webster, says : " His occasional discourses 
rise above the rest of their class, as the Bunker Hill Monument soars above 
the objects around it." 

Mr. Choate, in his address to the students of Dartmouth College, in 
1853, in that sublime paragraph in which he reviews the history of oratory 
and contrasts the eloquence of despair with the eloquence of hope, says : 
" Let the downward age of America find its orators, and poets, and artists, 
to erect its spirit, or grace and soothe its dying; be it ours to go up with 
Webster to the rock, the monument, the capitol, and bid the distant gen- 
erations hail." 

References. — Curtis's Life of Webster ^ Ch. XL; Everett's Mefnoir, in 
Vol. I. of Webster's Works; Lodge's Webster y Ch. IV.; Memorial of 
Webster, Mr. Hillard's and Mr. Choate's Address; J. Fiske's The American 
Revoluiion-y E. P. Whipple's Daniel Webster, in Vol. L, Essays and 
Reviews ; E. P.Whipple's Webster as a Master of English Style, American 
Literature; H. N. Hudson's Address on the looth Anniversary of 
Webster'' s Birth (Ginn & Co.) ; Peter Harvey's Reminiscences of Webster; 
Select Speeches of Daniel Webster (ed. George). 



WASHINGTON'S 
FAREWELL ADDRESS 



WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 

TO THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES 



Friends and Fellow- Citizens : 

The period for a new election of a citizen, to administer 
the executive government of the United States, being not far 
distant, and the time actually arrived, when your thoughts 
must be employed in designating the person, who is to be 
5 clothed with that important trust, it appears to me proper, 
especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression 
of the public voice, that I should now apprize you of the 
resolution I have formed, to decline being considered 
among the number of those, out of whom a choice is to be 

10 made. 

I beg you, at the same time, to do me the justice to be 
assured, that this resolution has not been taken without a 
strict regard to all the considerations appertaining to the 
relation, which binds a dutiful citizen to his country; and 

15 that, in withdrawing the tender of service, which silence in 
my situation might imply, I am influenced by no diminution 
of zeal for your future interest ; no deficiency of grateful 
respect for your past kindness ; but am supported by a full 
conviction that the step is compatible with both. 

20 The acceptance of, and continuance hitherto in, the office 

37 



38 WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 

to which your suffrages have twice called me, have been a 
uniform sacrifice of inclination to the opinion of duty, and 
to a deference for what appeared to be your desire. I con- 
stantly hoped, that it would have been much earlier in my 
power, consistently with motives, which I was not at liberty 5 
to disregard, to return to that retirement, from which I had 
been reluctantly drawn. The strength of my inclination 
to do this, previous to the last election, had even led to 
the preparation of an address to declare it to youj but 
mature reflection on the then perplexed and critical posture ^^ 
of our affairs with foreign nations, and the unanimous ad- 
vice of persons entitled to my confidence, impelled me to 
abandon the idea. 

I rejoice, that the state of your concerns, external as 
well as internal, no longer renders the pursuit of inclina- ^5 
tion incompatible with the sentiment of duty, or propriety ; 
and am persuaded, whatever partiality may be retained 
for my services, that, in the present circumstances of our 
country, you will not disapprove my determination to 
retire. 20 

The impressions, with which I first undertook the ar- 
duous trust, were explained on the proper occasion. In 
the discharge of this trust, I will only say, that I have, with 
good intentions, contributed towards the organization and 
administration of the government the best exertions of which 25 
a very fallible judgment was capable. Not unconscious, 
in the outset, of the inferiority of my qualifications, expe- 
rience in my own eyes, perhaps still more in the eyes of 
others, has strengthened the motives to diffidence of my- 
self ; and every day the increasing weight of years admon- 30 
ishes me more and more, that the shade of retirement is 



WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 39 

as necessary to me as it will be welcome. Satisfied, that, if 
any circumstances have given peculiar value to my services, 
they were temporary, I have the consolation to believe, that, 
while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political 
5 scene, patriotism does not forbid it. 

In looking forward to the moment, which is intended to 
terminate the career of my public life, my feelings do not 
permit me to suspend the deep acknowledgment of that debt 
of gratitude, which I owe to my beloved country for the 

10 many honors it has conferred upon me ; still more for the 
steadfast confidence with which it has supported me ; and 
for the opportunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting 
my inviolable attachment, by services faithful and persever- 
ing, though in usefulness unequal to my zeal. If benefits 

15 have resulted to our country from these services, let it al- 
ways be remembered to your praise, and as an instructive 
example in our annals, that under circumstances in which 
the passions, agitated in every direction, were liable to mis- 
lead, amidst appearances sometimes dubious, vicissitudes 

20 of fortune often discouraging, in situations in which not un- 
frequently want of success has countenanced the spirit of 
criticism, the constancy of your support was the essential 
prop of the efforts, and a guarantee of the plans by which 
they were effected. Profoundly penetrated with this idea, 

25 I shall carry it with me to my grave, as a strong incitement 
to unceasing vows that Heaven may continue to you the 
choicest tokens of its beneficence ; that your union and bro- 
therly affection may be perpetual ; that the free constitu- 
tion, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly 

30 maintained ; that its administration in every department 
may be stamped with wisdom and virtue ; that, in fine, the 



40 WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 

happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices 
of Uberty, may be made complete, by so careful a preserva- 
tion and so prudent a use of this blessing, as will acquire 
to them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the 
affection, and adoption of every nation, which is yet a 5 
stranger to it. 

Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your 
welfare, which cannot end but with my life, and the appre- 
hension of danger, natural to that solicitude, urge me, on 
an occasion like the present, to offer to your solemn con- lo 
templation, and to recommend to your frequent review, 
some sentiments, which are the result of much reflection, 
of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me 
all-important to the permanency of your felicity as a People. 
These will be offered to you with the more freedom, as you ^5 
can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a part- 
ing friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to 
bias his counsel. Nor can I forget, as an encouragement 
to it, your indulgent reception of my sentiments on a for- 
mer and not dissimilar occasion. 20 

Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament 
of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to 
fortify or confirm the attachment. »-j — - 

The unity of Government, which constitutes you one 
people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so : for it is a 25 
main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the 
support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad ; 
of your safety ; of your prosperity ; of that very Liberty, 
which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee, that, 
from different causes and from different quarters, much 3° 
pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in 



WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 41 

your minds the conviction of this truth ; as this is the point 
in your political fortress against which the batteries of in- 
ternal and external enemies will be most constantly and 
actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, 
5 it is of infinite moment, that you should properly estimate 
the immense value of your national Union to your collec- 
tive and individual happiness ; that you should cherish a 
cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it ; accus- 
toming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the Palla- 

10 dium of your political safety and prosperity ; watching for 
its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing 
whatever may suggest even a suspicion, that it can in any 
event be abandoned ; and indignantly frowning upon the 
first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of 

15 our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties 
which now link together the various parts. 

For this you have every inducement of sympathy and in- 
terest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, 
that country has a right to concentrate your affections. 

20 The name of American, which belongs to you, in your 
national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Pa- 
triotism, more than any appellation derived from local dis- 
criminations. With slight shades of difference, you have 
the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. 

25 You have in a common cause fought and triumphed to- 
gether ; the Independence and Liberty you possess are the 
work of joint counsels, and joint efforts, of common dangers, 
sufferings, and successes. 

But these considerations, however powerfully they ad- 

30 dress themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed 
by those, which apply more immediately to your interest. 



42 WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 

Here every portion of our country finds the most command- 
ing motives for carefully guarding and preserving the 
Union of the whole. 

The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, 
protected by the equal layi^s of a common government, finds, 5 
in the productions of the latter, great additional resources 
of maritime and commercial enterprise and precious mate- 
rials of manufacturing industry. The South, in the same 
intercourse, benefiting by the agency of the North, sees its 
agriculture grow and its commerce expand. Turning partly lo 
into its own channels the seamen of the North, it finds its 
particular navigation invigorated ; and, while it contributes, 
in different ways, to nourish and increase the general mass 
of the national navigation, it looks forward to the protection 
of a maritime strength, to which itself is unequally adapted. ^5 
The East, in a like intercourse with the West, already finds, 
and in the progressive improvement of interior communica- 
tions by land and water, will more and more find, a valu- 
able vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad, 
or manufactures at home. The West derives from the 20 
East supplies requisite to its growth and comfort, and, what 
is perhaps of still greater consequence, it must of necessity 
owe the secure enjoyment of indispensable outlets for its 
own productions to the weight, influence, and the future 
maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the Union, directed 25 
by an indissoluble community of interest as one nation. Any 
other tenure by which the West can hold this essential ad- 
vantage, whether derived from its own separate strength, 
or from an apostate and unnatural connection with any 
foreign power, must be intrinsically precarious. 3° 

While, then, every part of our country thus feels an 



WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 43 

immediate and particular interest in Union, all the parts 
combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of means 
and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportion- 
ably greater security from external danger, a less frequent 
5 interruption of their peace by foreign nations ; and, what is 
of inestimable value, they must derive from Union an ex- 
emption from those broils and wars between themselves, 
which so frequently afflict neighbouring countries not tied 
together by the same governments, which their own rival- 

10 ships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which oppo- 
site foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would 
stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid 
the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, 
which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to 

^^5 liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hos- 
tile to Republican Liberty. In this sense it is, that your 
Union ought to be considered as a main prop of your lib- 
erty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you 
the preservation of the other. 

20 These considerations speak a persuasive language to 
every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continu- 
ance of the Union as a primary object of Patriotic desire. 
Is there a doubt, whether a common government can em- 
brace so large a sphere ? Let experience solve it. To lis- 

25 ten to mere speculation in such a case were criminal. We 
are authorized to hope, that a proper organization of 
the whole, with the auxiliary agency of governments for 
the respective subdivisions, will afford a happy issue to the 
experiment. It is well worth a fair and full experiment. 

30 With such powerful and obvious motives to Union, affect- 
ing all parts of our country, while experience shall not have 



44 



WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 



demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be rea- 
son to distrust the patriotism of those, who in any quarter 
may endeavour to weaken its bands. 

In contemplating the causes, which may disturb our 
Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern, that any 5 
ground should have been furnished for characterizing par- 
ties by (?^^^/'^//^/<;^/ discriminations. Northern and Southern^ 
Atlantic and Western ; whence designing men may endeav- 
our to excite a belief, that there is a real difference of 
local interests and views. One of the expedients of party ^o 
to acquire influence, within particular districts, is to misre- 
present the opinions and aims of other districts. You can- 
not shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and 
heart-burnings, which spring from these misrepresentations; 
they tend to render alien to each other those, who ought ^5 
to be bound together by fraternal affection. The inhabit- 
ants of our western country have lately had a useful lesson 
on this head ; they have seen, in the negotiation by the 
Executive, and in the unanimous ratification by the Senate, 
of the treaty with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction 20 
at that event, throughout the United States, a decisive proof 
how unfounded were the suspicions propagated among them 
of a policy in the General Government and in the Atlantic 
States unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Missis- 
sippi j they have been witnesses to the formation of two 25 
treaties, that with Great Britain, and that with Spain, which 
secure to them every thing they could desire, in respect to 
our foreign relations, towards confirming their prosperity. 
Will it not be their wisdom to rely for the preservation of 
these advantages on the Union by which they were pro- 3° 
cured ? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those advisers. 



WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 45 

if such there are, who would sever them from their brethren, 
and connect them with aliens ? 

To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a Gov- 
ernment for the whole is indispensable. No alliances, how- 

5 ever strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute ;^ 
they must inevitably experience the infractions and int( 
ruptions, which all alliances in all times have experienced^ 
Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upoji 
your first essay, by the adoption of a Constitution of Gov- / 

10 ernment better calculated than your former for an intimate 7^ 
Union, and for the efficacious management of your common \ 
concerns. This Government, the offspring of our own i 
choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full inves- 
tigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its 

15 principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting secu- 
rity with energy, and containing within itself a provision 
for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence 
and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance 
with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties en- 

20 joined by the fundamental maxims of true Liberty. T'hel 
rBasis of our political systems is the right of the people to j 
make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But 
the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by 

1 an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sa- J 

2^jDredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and 
the right of the people to establish Government presup- 
poses the duty of every individual to obey the established 
Government. 

All obstructions to the execution of the Laws, all com- 

30 binations and associations, under whatever plausible char- 
acter, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, 



46 WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 

or awe the regular deliberation and action of the consti- 
tuted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental prin- 
ciple, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize 
faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force ; to 
put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will 5 
of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minor- 
ity of the community ; and, according to the alternate tri- 
umphs of different parties, to make the public administra- 
tion the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects 
of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and whole- ^o 
some plans digested by common counsels, and modified by 
mutual interests. 

However combinations or associations of the above de- 
scriptions may now and then answer popular ends, they are 
likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent ^5 
engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled 
men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, 
and to usurp for themselves the reins of government ; de- 
stroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them 
to unjust dominion. 20 

Towards the preservation of your government, and the 
permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not 
only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions 
to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with 
care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however 25 
specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to 
effect, in the forms of the constitution, alterations, which 
will impair the energy of the system, and thus to under- 
mine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the 
changes to which you may be invited, remember that time 3° 
and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character 



WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 47 

of governments, as of other human institutions ; that expe- 
rience is the surest standard, by which to test the real ten- 
dency of the existing constitution of a country ; that facility 
in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opin- 

5 ion, exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety 
of hypothesis and opinion ; and remember, especially, that, 
for the efficient management of your common interests, in 
a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much 
vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is 

10 indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a govern- 
ment, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its 
surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name, 
where the government is too feeble to withstand the enter- 
prise of faction, to confine each member of the society 

15 within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain 
all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of 
person and property. 

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in 
the state, with particular reference to the founding of them 

20 on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more 
comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn 
manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, 
generally. 

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, 

25 having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. 
It exists under different shapes in all governments, more 
or less stifled, controlled, or repressed ; but, in those of the 
popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly 
their worst enemy. 

30 The alternate domination of one faction over another, 
sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissen- 



48 WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 

sion, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated 
the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. 
But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent 
despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, grad- 
ually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose 5 
in the absolute power of an individual ; and sooner or later 
the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more 
fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to 
the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public 
Liberty. lo 

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, 
(which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight,) 
the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party 
are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise 
people to discourage and restrain it. ^5 

It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and en- 
feeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Commu- 
nity with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles 
the animosity of one part against another, foments occa- 
sionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign 20 
influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to 
the government itself through the channels of party pas- 
sions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are 
subjected to the policy and will of another. 

There is an opinion, that parties in free countries are 25 
useful checks upon the administration of the Government, 
and serve to keep alive the spirit of Liberty. This within 
certain limits is probably true ; and in Governments of a 
Monarchical cast. Patriotism may look with indulgence, if 
not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of 3o 
the popular character, in Governments purely elective, it 



WASHINGTON'S t ARE WELL ADDRESS 49 

is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural ten- 
dency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit 
for every salutary purpose. And, there being constant dan- 
ger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opin- 
5 ion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, 
it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into 
a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume. 

It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in 
a free country should inspire caution, in those intrusted 

10 with its administration, to confine themselves within their 
respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise 
of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. 
The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the pow- 
ers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, what- 

15 ever the form of government, a real despotism. A just 
estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, 
which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to 
satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of 
reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by di- 

20 viding and distributing it into different depositories, and 
constituting each the Guardian of the Public Weal against 
invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments 
ancient and modern ; some of them in our country and 
under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as neces- 

25 sary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, 
the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers 
be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amend- 
ment in the way which the constitution designates. But 
let there be no change by usurpation ; for, though this, in 

30 one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the cus- 
tomary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. 



59 WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 

The precedent must always greatly overbalance in perma- 
nent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can 
at any time yield. 

Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political 
prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable sup- 5 
ports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patri- 
otism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of 
human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men 
and Citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious 
man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume ^o 
could not trace all their connexions with private and public 
felicity. Let it sjmply be asked. Where is the security for 
property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious 
obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of in- 
vestigation in Courts of Justice ? And let us with caution ^5 
indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained 
without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the in- 
fluence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, 
reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national 
morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. ^o 

It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a neces- 
sary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, ex- 
tends with more or less force to every species of free gov- 
ernment. Who, that is a sincere friend to it, can look with 
indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the 25 
fabric ? 

Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, in- 
stitutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In pro- 
portion as the structure of a government gives force to 
public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be 3° 
enlightened. 



WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 51 

As a very important source of strength and security, 
cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is, to 
use it as sparingly as possible ; avoiding occasions of ex- 
pense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely 

5 disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent 
much greater disbursements to repel it ; avoiding likewise 
the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions 
of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to 
discharge the debts, which unavoidable wars may have 

10 occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the 
burthen, which we ourselves ought to bear. The execution 
of these maxims belongs to your representatives, but it is 
necessary that public opinion should cooperate. To facili- 
tate to them the performance of their duty, it is essential 

15 that you should practically bear in mind, that towards the 
payment of debts there must be Revenue ; that to have 
Revenue there must be taxes ; that no taxes can be devised, 
which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant; 
that the intrinsic embarrassment, inseparable from the se- 

20 lection of the proper objects (which is always a choice of 
difficulties), ought to be a decisive motive for a candid 
construction of the conduct of the government in making 
it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for 
obtaining revenue, which the public exigencies may at any 

25 time dictate. 

Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations ; cul- 
tivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and Morality 
enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does 
not equally enjoin it ? It will be worthy of a free, enlight- 

30 ened, and, at no distant period, a great Nation, to give to 
mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a 



52 WA:SHING TON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 

people always guided by an exalted justice and benevo- 
lence. Who can doubt, that, in the course of time and 
things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any 
temporary advantages, which might be lost by a steady 
adherence to it ? Can it be, that Providence has not con- 5 
nected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its Virtue ? 
The experiment, at least, is recommended by every senti- 
ment which ennobles human nature. Alas ! is it rendered 
impossible by its vices .'' 

In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essen- lo 
tial, than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against 
particular Nations, and passionate attachments for others, 
should be excluded ; and that, in place of them, just and 
amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The 
Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual ha- ^5 
tred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. 
It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of 
which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its 
interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes 
each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold 20 
of slight causes of umbrage, and' to be haughty and in- 
tractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute 
occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, 
and bloody contests. The Nation, prompted by ill-will and 
resentment, sometimes impels to war the Government, con- 25 
traryto the best calculations of policy. The Government, 
sometimes participates in the national propensity, and 
adopts through passion what reason would reject ; at other 
times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient 
to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and 3° 
other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often. 



WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 53 

sometimes perhaps the liberty, of Nations has been the 
victim. 

So likewise, a passionate attachment of one Nation for 
another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the 
5 favorite Nation, facilitating the illusion of an imagi- 
nary common interest, in cases where no real common 
interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of 
the other, betrays the former into a participation in the 
quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate induce- 

10 ment or justification. It leads also to concessions to the 
favorite Nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt 
doubly to injure the Nation making the concessions ; by 
unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been re- 
tained ; and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition 

Jf5 to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are 
withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or de- 
luded citizens, (who devote themselves to the favorite 
nation,) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their 
own country, without odium, sometimes even with popu- 

20 larity ; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of 
obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, 
or a laudable zeal for public good, the base of foolish com- 
pliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation. 

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, 

25 such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly 
enlightened and independent Patriot. How many oppor- 
tunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, 
to practise the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, 
to influence or awe the Public Councils ! Such an attach- 

30 ment of a small or weak, towards a great and powerful 
nation, dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter. 



54 WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I con- 
jure you to believe me, fellow-citizens,) the jealousy of a 
free people ought to be constantly awake ; since history 
and experience prove, that foreign influence is one of the 
most baneful foes of Republican Government. But that 5 
jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial ; else it becomes 
the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, in- 
stead of a defence against it. Excessive partiality for one 
foreign nation, and excessive dislike of another, cause 
those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and lo 
serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the 
other. Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the 
favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious ; while 
its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of 
the people, to surrender their interests. ^5 

The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign 
nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have 
with them as little political connexion as possible. So far 
as we have already formed engagements, let them be ful- 
filled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. ^o 

Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have 
none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be en- 
gaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are 
essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it 
must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial 25 
ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the or- 
dinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or 
enmities. 

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables 
us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people, 3o 
under an efficient government, the period is not far off, 



WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 55 

when we may defy material injury from external annoy- 
ance ; when we may take such an attitude as will cause 
the neutrality, we may at any time resolve upon, to be 
scrupulously respected ; when belligerent nations, under 

5 the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not 
lightly hazard the giving us provocation ; when we may 
choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, 
shall counsel. 

Why forego the advantages .of so peculiar a situation ? 

10 Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground ? Why, 
by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Eu- 
rope, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of 
European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice ? 
It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances 

15 with any portion of the foreign world ; so far, I mean, 
as we are now at liberty to do it ; for let me not be un- 
derstood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing 
engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to 
public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the 

20 best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements 
be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, 
it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them. 

Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable estab- 
lishments, on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely 

25 trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies. 
Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are re- 
commended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even 
our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial 
hand ; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or 

30 preferences; consulting the natural course of things; dif- 
fusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of 



56 WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 

commerce, but forcing nothing ; establishing, with powers 
so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to de- 
fine the rights of our merchants, and to enable the govern- 
ment to support them, conventional rules of intercourse, 
the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion 5 
will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to 
time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances 
shall dictate ; constantly keeping in view, that it is folly 
in one nation to look for disinterested favors from an- 
other j that it must pay with a portion of its independence ^o 
for whatever it may accept under that character ; that, by 
such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of 
having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of 
being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. 
There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate ^5 
upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion, 
which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to 
discard. 

In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an 
old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make 20 
the strong and lasting impression I could wish ; that they 
will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent 
our nation from running the course, which has hitherto 
marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may even flatter 
myself, that they may be productive of some partial bene- 25 
fit, some occasional good ; that they may now and then 
recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against 
the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the im- 
postures of pretended patriotism ; this hope will be a full 
recompense for the solicitude for your welfare, by which 30 
they have been dictated. 



WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 57 

How far in the discharge of my official duties, I have 
been guided by the principles which have been delineated, 
the public records and other evidences of my conduct must 
witness to you and to the world. To myself, the assur- 
5 ance of my own conscience is, that I have at least believed 
myself to be guided by them. 

In relating to the still subsisting war in Europe, my 
Proclamation of the 22d of April, 1793, is the index to my 
Plan. Sanctioned by your approving voice, and by that 

10 of your Representatives in both Houses of Congress, the 
spirit of that measure has continually governed me, unin- 
fluenced by any attempts to deter or divert me from it. 

After deliberate examination, with the aid of the best 
lights I could obtain, I was well satisfied that our country, 

15 under all the circumstances of the case, had a right to 
take, and was bound in duty and interest to take, a neutral 
position. Having taken it, I determined, as far as should 
depend upon me, to maintain it, with moderation, persever- 
ance, and firmness. 

20 The considerations, which respect the right to hold this 
conduct, it is not necessary on this occasion to detail. I 
will only observe, that, according to my understanding of 
the matter, that right, so far from being denied by any of 
the Belligerent Powers, has been virtually admitted by all. 

25 The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, 
without any thing more, from the obligation which justice 
and humanity impose on every nation, in cases in which it 
is free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of peace 
and amity towards other nations. 

30 The inducements of interest for observing that conduct 
will best be referred to your own reflections and experience. 



58 WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 

With me, a predominant motive has been to endeavour to 
gain time to our country to settle and mature its yet recent 
institutions, and to progress without interruption to that de- 
gree of strength and consistency, which is necessary to give 
it, humanly speaking, the command of its own fortunes. 5 

Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, 
I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless 
too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I 
may have committed many errors. Whatever they may 
be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate lo 
the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with 
me the hope, that my Country will never cease to view them 
with indulgence; and that, after forty-five years of my life 
dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of 
incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as my- ^5 
self must soon be to the mansions of rest. 

Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and 
actuated by that fervent love towards it, which is so natu- 
ral to a man, who views in it the native soil of himself and 
his progenitors for several generations; I anticipate with 20 
pleasing expectation that retreat, in which I promise my- 
self to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of par- 
taking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign in- 
fluence of good laws under a free government, the ever 
favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I 25 
trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers. 

George Washington. 

United States, September 17th, 1796. 



NOTES. 



WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS. 

The Farewell Address is here printed as given by Sparks, from a copy 
of '* Claypoole's American Daily Advertiser^'' for September 19, 1796. On 
this paper are endorsed the following words in Washington's handwriting, 
which were designed as an instruction to the copyist, who recorded the 
Address in the letter book : " The letter contained in this gazette, ad- 
dressed * To the People of the United States,' is to be recorded, and in 
the order of its date. Let it have a blank page before and after it, so as 
to stand distinct. Let it be written with a letter larger and fuller than the 
common recording hand. And where words are printed with capital let- 
ters, it is to be done so in recording. And those other words, that are 
printed in italics, must be scored underneath and straight by a ruler." 
" The copy from which the final draft was printed," says Sparks, " is now 
in existence. It was given by Washington himself to Mr. Claypoole, the 
printer. This manuscript, by the permission of Mr. Claypoole, I have 
examined, and it is wholly in the handwriting of Washington. It bears 
all the marks of a most rigid and laborious revision." 

See Sparks's note on the authorship of the Farewell Address, in the 
appendix to vol. xii of his edition of the Writings of Washington, page 382. 

Inasmuch as the principles of the famous Farewell Address and of the 
great Bunker Hill Oration are to be studied together, as representing what 
is fundamental in the conduct of a growing Republic, no better comment 
can be found upon the former than that of Webster's address on the cen- 
tenary of the birth of Washington. 

While reproducing a part of that noble address in outline here, it is 
hoped that every student will make himself familiar with it as a whole, 
for it is a political, literary, and historical masterpiece. 

Washington is a name to attract a people's love and a world's respect. 



6o NOTES. 

Great historic places and occasions have a power to kindle anew the 
love of country. 

Neither of these equals great moral examples in moving mind and heart. 

In an age and century full of wonders, Washington is the chief. 

The Western World was a fitting place for the inhabitation of such a 
character. 

The greatest revelation of the century is the elevation of the individual 
man in moral, social, and political character. 

Washington's task was to lead in the experiment of a government with- 
out a throne, without an aristocracy, without castes ; a government based 
upon a written constitution and a pure representative principle. 

This experiment in popular government is one of the most attractive 
objects in the civilized world. 

There existed little political liberty in Europe at the period of the birth 
of Washington. 

The world wonders if republican states may be healthy as well as 
powerful, stable as well as free. 

If we fail, who shall venture the experiment ? 

For the good of our country and the world we must exert ourselves that 
the spirit of Washington influences all who succeed him. 

The principles of Washington's administration are to be found in that 
most interesting paper, his Farewell Address to the People of the United 
States. 

Washington had no favorites ; he rejected all partisanship ; and thus 
*' he changed mankind's ideas of political greatness." 

His principle was to act right and to trust the people for support. 

Two maxims guided him in the conduct of our foreign relations : First, 
absolute impartiality ; and, second, dignity and honor in all communica- 
tions. 

He abstained from all interference in the internal affairs of other na- 
tions ; and repelled all interference by others in our concerns. 

These two principles of action form the fundamental note of his Fare- 
well Address. 

American position favors and demands neutrality. 

The Farewell Address is full of truths important at all times. / hardly 
know how a greater service could now be done to the community than by a 
renewed and wide diffusion of that admirable paper, and an earnest invita- 
tion to every man in the country to reperuse and consider it. 



NOTES. 6i 

P. 46, 11. 13-20. Here is a prophecy of what already exists in the politi- 
cal condition of our great cities, and constitutes such a menace to good 
government. 

P. 50, 11. 4-20. No race or nation will ever be great or will long main- 
tain greatness, unless it holds fast to the faith in a living God, in a benefi- 
cent Providence, and in a personal immortality. To man as to nation 
every gift of noblest origin is breathed upon by this hope's perpetual 
breath. I am not here to make an argument. I only affirm a fact. Where 
this faith lives are found Courage, Manhood, Power. When this faith 
dies, Courage, Manhood, Power die with it. — George F. Hoar. 

P. 51, 1. 26. This paragraph has had its most illustrious exposition in 
the noble ideals which characterized the diplomacy of our late distin- 
guished Secretary of State, John Hay. 

P. 52, 1. 10. The ideas expressed in this and the following paragraph 
are exceedingly difficult for modern nations to live up to, because of the 
great interests, political and commercial. 

P. 54, 1. 21-P. 55, 1. 13. These sentiments have recently been empha- 
sized in our midst by Sir William Mather, the distinguished English Lib- 
eral, who said : " Owing to your geographical position, your unbounded 
resources, and your political independence, you are able to exert a com- 
manding influence on European affairs ; but once become entangled in 
foreign politics, suspicion arises and the influence is gone." 

Owing to the part which President Roosevelt has played in taking the 
initiative in the Peace Conference between Russia and Japan and in pro- 
moting its successful issue in the interests of civilization, America, in the 
year of 1905, may be called the Peacemaker among Nations. This influ- 
ence has been due to the very elements which Sir William mentions. 



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